Stuffed Cannolis and Bao Haus

Phil's cousin Lea came to visit from North Carolina, so it was another trip into the city back to Congee Village for lunch. Congee Village appears to have grown in popularity among the cousins. We had the standard sweet donuts, garlic chicken, fried tofu and noodle dishes.




This time around we also ordered the pineapple fried rice. Served in an actual pineapple shell.

Here's the group (me, Lucia, Winnie, Phil's dad, Phil's mom, Aunt Chan, Kevin, Lea, and Uncle Chan).

After lunch we did a little exploring of some local eateries - as if we didn't have tons of food at Congee Village, but there's always room for something sweet!

Our first stop was a cannoli place on the lower east side called Stuffed Artisan Cannolis. Lucia and Kevin were jumping with excitement outside the store in anticipation of cannoli goodness.

This cannoli place has tons of different flavors from chocolate to pumpkin pie and PB&J.

They even have a giant cannoli you can order. They make it to order so the shell doesn't get soggy. Imagine how many people it would take to eat a cannoli that big...

We ordered the bacon chocolate, mint chocolate chip and spicy chocolate mini-cannolis.

We also ordered a smores cannoli, topped with graham cracker pieces and 2 marshmallows, which the guy actually lit on fire to get the toasted marshmallow effect.

After satisfying our sweet tooth craving we made our way to the next stop. Along the way we passed a little mini-market that had a window display devoted to Pop-Tarts. Who knew Pop-Tarts had so many flavors?! I mean S'mores, Blueberry and Chocolate Chip I've heard of, but Wild Grape, Strawberry and Vanilla Milkshake, and Hot Fudge Sundae? Are we eating breakfast food or dessert?

Our next food stop was a Taiwanese pork bun place, also in the lower east side, called BaoHaus. This place opened very recently by a first generation Taiwanese-American and he makes traditional Taiwanese pork buns with some new twists.

Someone apparently made a big order earlier that morning, so we waited outside while reading the menu.

The cousins started to get a little restless as the wait continued. Kevin looks hungry.

While I didn't get a chance to test the owner on his Taiwanese, we did finally get a chance to snag some food. We ordered one of each of their baos - the Haus Bao (skirt steak bao), the Chairman Bao (pork belly fat bao), and the Uncle Jesse (fried tofu vegetarian bao).

We also ordered sweet bao fries (fried slices of bao with sweet sesame sauce), which I thought were surprisingly tasty - despite the slightly creepy looking black sauce.

We were also going to order the Taiwanese roasted peanuts, but unfortunately they were all out. I may have to drag Phil back there to give those a try. ^__~

Overall not bad aside from the wait.